BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 6. Electricity production from a 240 MW "Shafag" (Sunrise) solar power plant in Jabrayil / Zangilan zone with bp is expected to start in about 2 years’ time, Elnur Soltanov, Deputy Minister of Energy of Azerbaijan told Trend.
According to Soltanov, bp affiliated technicians are expected to arrive on the ground this month.
"The area around 900 hectares in Jabrayil region has been cleared of mines. In some places the area had to be cleared of mines to the depth of 4 meters, which is a lot, and very few devices in Azerbaijan can do that. The demining has been a big challenge, but the Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) has done a great job. And we also have to make sure that this land is not useful for agriculture production, because there are other projects that we have to align with," the deputy minister explained.
Regarding the concept of this project, Soltanov pointed out that this is kind of a "virtual" power plant. It is envisaged that the green energy produced in Karabakh will be delivered to Absheron, namely to Sangachal terminal, which bp operated, and thus, oil and gas processing will be decarbonized.
"Oil and gas processing is a very energy intensive issue, and usually the electricity required is obtained by burning a lot of energy resources. By decarbonizing this process, bp and its partners, including SOCAR and Azerbaijani Government as a whole, will not be subjected to certain taxes, which are imposed when you are using oil and gas, so, there is an economic advantage. At the same time, the natural gas that is being released there is basically going back to the corporation," he noted.
As the deputy minister pointed out, if the corporation of the size of bp is going to invest in Karabakh, it means, that they are there to stay. This is also a signal to the global corporations that it is safe to invest in the liberated territories.
"I personally think, bp’s presence in Azerbaijan in the 1990’s was very important in terms of strengthening our sovereignty, and the same process is now happening in terms of reviving the liberated territories. We attach a lot of importance to this partnership, and whenever we talk to our bp partners, they say that they have never seen Azerbaijani personnel as excited as they are now to be a part of this peace building process," he added.
Soltanov noted that there are similar projects in the pipeline, while requests from several corporations that also want to implement such projects in Azerbaijan, where it will be possible to sell the electricity not to Azerbaijan, but to someone else, have been received.
"We do have similar projects, but one issue is that, renewable energy is not controllable, and balancing it is a very challenging process. In many European countries this problem is solved because of the great energy connectivity between the countries. Due to the aggressive policy of Armenia, there is a lack of connectivity in our region. But we are working on this issue and holding discussions with several companies," he added.